THE ICHOR of JESUITISM by Dr. Omar

4 responses to “THE ICHOR of JESUITISM by Dr. Omar”

  1. How few people know who the enemy is. How sad it was to watch the Pope at the U.S. Capital addressing the people to thunderous applause. The enemy of God and man received with open arms. How sad indeed.

    “…because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12

  2. JESUITS A SYNAGOGUE OF JEWS

    THE FOUNDATION OF JEWISH AND JESUIT EDUCATION:
    A CONCISE COMPARISON
    Yechezkel Moskowitz
    Advanced Foundations of Education
    7/13/2014
    Professor David Himes
    University of Scranton

    Abstract
    Unlike the educational system in the United States, which has lacked true sense of direction since its foundation. There have been educational systems throughout history, which have had a set goal s in mind since their inception. These educational systems are usually coupled with a form of religious observance. Of those goal oriented educational systems, the Jesuit and Jewish brands of education are two very important systems to analyze. The similarities between these two systems are very noticeable when one takes a closer look at their inner workings. The purpose of this reflection essay is to analyze the most basic level of core values for both these systems of religious education, and to simply compare the two side by side.

    The Foundations of Jewish and Jesuit Education: A Comparison

    Education being about more than just a form of transmitting basic survival skills has been on the mind of humanity since the earliest forms of civilization. In the earliest Egyptian written records there is evidence of a formal educational system in place. This Education was usually only available to the wealthy and the connected. It was designed to teach basic communication skills such as writing, language, and trade. Agricultural and religious practices were taught as well. However, there is no indication that these institutions had established a system of education for the sake of knowledge or the betterment of mankind. Rather, “the education was determined wholly by social need and was thus essentially technical and professional” (Laurie, 1893). It would not be until around 2000 years later in the 2nd millennium B.C.E., that through a divine revelation to a newly freed nation of Egyptian slaves, a different form of education would come into the world.

    Foundations of Jewish Education: Devotion to God through Revelation

    Jewish tradition, as passed down from generation to generation, tells that on the seventh day of the third month of the year 2,448 from the creation of the world (1312 B.C.E.). God revealed himself to approximately three million Jews standing at the foot of Mount Sinai and said, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Ex. 20:2). God then proceeded to give Moses the nine other commandments, and the Old Testament, in order to teach to it to the Jews. The Written Law coupled with the Oral Law as given over by Moses, would be from then on to this very day, “[…] a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob” (Deut. 33:4). The Old Testament-or rather the Torah for my discussion- and the oral law, are believed to be a blueprint for every Jew on how lead a life of servitude and devotion to God. Naturally, teaching and studying all aspects of the Torah plays a central and integral role in Jewish Society to this very day.

    The Power of Tradition

    The transmission of the Torah has remained virtually the same since its reception over three thousand years ago. The Torah is vertically transmitted from generation to generation in the same fashion as famed anthropologist Margaret Mead put it, “by the old mature and experienced teacher (in our case a Rebbie, meaning a Torah Scholar) to the young immature and inexperienced pupil” (Mead, 1958). This tried and true method of Transmission has been an integral part of Jewish Education since its foundation. The Vertical aspect is so important, that “A student should not say anything which he has not heard from his teacher unless he mentions who he learned the matter from” (Maimonides, 1177). The Reason for such strict conduct is based on the how Jewish Tradition dictates, that the Torah in its entirety was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. This is brought to point in the Talmud (Tractate Brachot, Folio 5A) by Rabbi Levi the son of Chana (290 C.E) who said it in the name of Rabbi Shimon the son of Lakish (200 C.E.):

    Why does it say in the Torah, (ex. 24:12) “And I shall pass on to you the stone tablets, the Torah and the Commandments that I wrote down for you to command them”. The [word] Tablets [in the verse]; [refers] are the Ten Commandments. The Torah; is the Old Testament. The Commandments; is the oral law. That I wrote down for you; is the Prophets and the Writings. To command them; is the Talmudic texts. From here [the above deductions] we see that all the above was given to Moses at Sinai.

    Therefore, in Jewish Scholarship, sourcing is imperative, as every code of law or dictum must be sourced in order to verify that it has been passed via vertical transmission.

    Moral and Ethical development

    Like it was stated before, the purpose of Torah study is to ensure the knowledge of proper servitude to God. This means that the Scholars who transmit the Torah and all its laws, are to be men of the highest caliber; men with an unwavering set of divinely inspired morals and ethical behavior. To the point that,

    It is prohibited to learn from a teacher who does not go in the good path – even if he is a great scholar and the people need him – until he repents and rectifies his ways […] for he is the messenger of god, and our sages teach us that we may only study by a teacher who is like an Angel of Heaven (Maimonides, 1177)

    Simply stated, people are only as good as their role models. As a society that is built around the idea of being devoted to God, and must be an example of that devotion to all the nations around them. It’s only logical that, “the old mature and experienced teacher” must be exactly that, an example to all those around him. Through the right form of conduct the Jewish people would fit the description in Samuel II (7:23)

    “Who is like your nation Israel – a unique nation in the land.”

    Foundations of Jesuit Education

    The Society of Jesus – whose members were known as Jesuits – was founded in the 16th century by a Spanish knight, Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) as a society within the Catholic Church that would bring forth the glory of God to the world. Interestingly, the early years of the order attracted many so called New Christians, as a way to avoid expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula or worse, the hell fire of the Auto De Fe. Most fascinating, is how the Jesuits had ties with Jews early on.

    The Jesuits remained true to Christian principles longer than many other Catholic institutions in Spain. Facing wide spread pressure to adopt “racial legislation”, it was only in 1593 […] that the Jesuits instituted purity of blood legislation. Until then, those with “Jewish blood” were welcomed and some of these reached high positions in the order, including Ignatius’ secretary, Juan Alfonso de Polanco, and his successor as Superior General, Diego Laynez, who was a significant intellectual leader of the Catholic Reformation. Francisco de Toledo, also of Jewish descent, was the first Jesuit to be appointed a cardinal. New Christians were so common in the order that King Phillip II of Spain termed the Jesuits

    “a synagogue of Hebrews.”

    (The fascinating subject of Jesuits and Jewish blood has received a full and expert treatment in Robert Aleksander Maryks’ recent work The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews.). (Shapiro, 2013)

    With this knowledge in mind, I read the article, Higher Standards by Dean Brackley S.J. and furthered my research by reading selections from A Jesuit Education Reader by George W Traub SJ. What I found astonishing was that there were so many themes within a Jesuit Education that resembled classic Jewish thought.

    Devotion to God trough Social Justice

    Jesuits are educators for the greater glory of God, following in the mind of Ignatius Loyola that an Educator must help others “find peace and direction in their lives out of the inspiration of the gospels” (Gray, 2008). It is my understanding, that this is the motivation for Jesuit institutions to put an emphasis on inspiring their students to better the world as they know it. A Jesuit Education will make them aware of the troubles of others. Through this awareness and the desire to go out into the world to promote Social Justice, the students will find peace and direction out of following in the ways of the Christian spirit, emulating the just ways of God himself.

    Finding God in all Things

    A Jesuit’s education desires to instill devotion to God through seeing the world through God’s eyes. Seeing God in all things enables the student to feel the tremendous gift that god has bestowed on him, life itself. With this self-awareness, a student will see the endless gifts of God all around him and desire to partner in God’s work, the betterment of the world. Brackley defines this higher standard as the goal of education, wisdom in the language of faith.

    Wisdom, not mere information is the goal of education. Again, let us study obscure insects and obscure authors […] but let the study be part of a quest to understand what life means, how life and well-being are threatened and how they can flourish. […] In the language of faith (Brackley, 2006)

    Seeking Truth
    Jesuit Education aspires to instill within the student an inbred ability to seek out the truth. This is done by students freeing themselves from bias through “uncovering hidden interests inside us and outside us” (Brackley, 2006). This concept of self-reflection is consistent with Judeo-Christian values and are well within the realm of Ignatius’ ideal of experience and awareness. When a student can engage in the suffering of others they are challenged with the question “what am I doing with my life? (Brackley, 2006) Without such questions, a student will never aspire to achieve greatness for the benefit of mankind.

    Conclusion

    I must emphasize that until I began my higher education in a Jesuit Institution, I was unaware that a Jesuit education is a Christian Education at its core. However, from a Jewish perspective that is not necessarily a negative thing. On the contrary, if Jesuits truly follow in the true Christian spirit as written by Pope John II in his Ex Corde Ecclesiae “to service others in promoting social justice…” (No. 34) and “…serve the human community on a national and international level” (Paul II, 1990) then it is something to be observed and even learned from. Such a concept is not my own innovation by any stretch of the imagination. The Talmud in Tractate Kiddushin, Folio 33A states that the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Yochanan (279 C.E.) would stand for non-Jewish scholars out of respect for their wisdom. Maimonides went further, and wrote in the introduction to his commentary for Chapters of our fathers “…hear the truth from whoever says it” And I believe that is exactly the core goal of both a Jewish and Jesuit Education system; Educate to seek the truth, mold better human beings, and bring the world to see the glory of God.

    References

    Brackley, D. (2006). Higher Standards. America Magazine Vol 194, No. 4.
    Gray, H. (2008). The Experience of Ignatius Loyola: Background to Jesuit education. In G. W. Traub, A Jesuit Education Reader (p. 69). Chicago: Loyola Press.
    Laurie, S. (1893). The History of Early Education II. The Anciant Egyptians. The School Review Vol. 1 No. 6, 353-364.
    Maimonides. (1177). Mishneh Torah (Vols. Mada, The Laws of Torah Study).
    Mead, M. (1958, December). Thinking Ahead. Harvard Budiness Review (Vol. 36), p. 23.
    Paul II, J. (1990). APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION. Retrieved from Vatican: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_en.html

    Shapiro, M. B. (2013, March 20). Is a Jesuit Good for the Jews? Retrieved from Tablet:

    http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/127310/is-a-jesuit-good-for-the-jews

    • Thank you … Why then … with 3 Jews and 6 Jesuit educated Supreme Court Judges did these ever so ‘moral and ethically’ educated people legalize same-sex marriage, and state it is ‘no different than heterosexual marriage’ in their ruling. I’m afraid you have bought the educational argument ‘hook-line and sinker’ but hey, that’s OK … the iniquity is coming to it’s full as the world groans under the leadership of all these highly educated folks eh?

  3. “Ignatius de Loyola”,
    THE KNIGHT TEMPLAR/JESUIT
    ‘ICSTUM NACAR REGES IMPIOS,’

    ‘It is just to annihilate impious rulers.’

    But what of Iñigo’s education?

    Determined on a priestly life, Iñigo de Loyola returned to Barcelona from Jerusalem in the spring of 1524. He spent the next three years in Spain getting the requisite Latin.

    Since direct contact with the Bible was prohibited by law, his reading coursed the humanities.

    With the esoteric experience of his Spiritual Exercises, he charmed the wives of important men. He received frequent invitations to dine at elegant tables, but preferred to beg food door to door and distribute the choice pickings to the poor and sick. He lived in an attic and slept on the floorboards, trying desperately to persuade God of his worthiness. He prayed for six hours each day, attended mass three times a week, confessed every Sunday, and continued whipping himself. He devised secret penances, such as boring holes in his shoes and going barefoot in winter.

    Sometimes the Exercises aroused in his followers instances of bizarre conduct – swooning, long spells of fainting or melancholia, rolling about the ground, being gripped with corpse-like rigidity.

    The Spanish Inquisition investigated him on suspicion of preaching Gnostic illuminism. When Iñigo insisted that he was not preaching at all, but was merely talking about the things of God in a familiar way, the Inquisitor released him. In successive frays, the Inquisition ordered Iñigo (1) to get rid of his eccentric clothing and dress like other students, (2) to refrain from holding meetings until he had completed four years of study, and (3) to refrain from defining what constituted a grave sin. Wearying of the harassment, he decided to seek his four years of education beyond the Inquisition’s reach.

    He set out for the University of Paris with a pack mule carrying his belongings. He arrived at the University on February 2, 1528, and soon afterward registered in the run-down old College of Montaigu. John Calvin, who would become Protestantism’s great theological systems designer, was leaving Montaigu just as Loyola arrived. Erasmus, the College’s most famous alumnus, remembered graduating from Montaigu “with nothing except an infected body and a vast array of lice.” The student body consisted mostly of wayward Parisian boys kept under harsh discipline; Iñigo was thirty-seven.

    Paris was expensive, even for students. Much of the funds Iñigo had raised in Barcelona had been stolen by one of his disciples. In early 1529 he went into Belgium, where it is believed he received money from people close to the Holy Roman Emperor. One of these was Juan de Cuellar, Treasurer of the Kingdom of Spain. Another was Luis Vives, personal secretary to the Emperor’s aunt, Queen Catherine of England, and private tutor to her daughter, Princess Mary (afterward the “Bloody” Queen). Iñigo returned to Paris much better off. He upgraded his lodgings.

    In October, he left Montaigu and enrolled at the College of Ste. Barbe across the street. He pursued a course in arts and philosophy that would last three and a half years. His name appears on the Ste. Barbe registry as “Ignatius de Loyola.” Some Jesuit historians have guessed he adopted the name in veneration of Ignatius of Antioch, an early Christian martyr. It was at Ste. Barbe that Iñigo began earnestly organizing his army, but not before traveling again to Belgium to ask Juan de Cuellar and Luis Vives for yet more money.

    Armed with his command of the Templar secrets and with introductions provided by the Emperor and Vives, Ignatius crossed to England. This significant voyage is mentioned only once in his autobiography. He admits that he “returned with more alms than he usually did in other years.” Perhaps Queen Catherine, the Emperor’s aunt, introduced him to the Howards and the Petres, known to be among the first families to receive and nourish Jesuits sent to England.

    Starting with his two Ste. Barbe roommates, Ignatius soon gathered a circle of six close friends ranging in age from teens to early twenties. Somewhat like himself, they were adventurous, impressionable, intelligent, and unpersuaded of the Bible’s supreme authority.

    Their fondest dream was to save the Holy Land from the Muslims by performing heroic Templaresque exploits. One by one Ignatius gave them the Spiritual Exercises, and one by one they became disciples. Within a few years they were calling themselves La Compañìa de Iesus, the Company of Jesus.

    On August 15, 1534, Feast Day of the Assumption of the Virgin into heaven, the companions swore oaths of service to the Blessed Virgin in Ste. Marie’s Church at Montmartre, and to St. Denis, patron saint of France, in his chapel. (The experience of the Montmartre Oaths must have been intense, for Francis Xavier, who would become St. Francis, Apostle to the East, made the Spiritual Exercises with “a penitential fervor,” says Broderick in Origin of the Jesuits, “that nearly cost him the use of his limbs.”) They vowed poverty, chastity, and to rescue Jerusalem from the Muslims. However, should the rescue prove infeasible within a year, they vowed to undertake without question whatever other task the pope might require of them.

    Well before a year had passed, Clement VII died and the Jerusalem dream was overwhelmed by more present dangers. Luther’s Bible in German was creating defection in record numbers throughout Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In France, the response to LeFevre’s Bible was so decisive that King Francis I exclaimed that he would behead his own children if he found them harboring the blasphemous heresies acquirable through direct contact with scripture. England was lost in its entirety, due not to Bible reading, which Henry VIII prosecuted as avidly as any pope, but to the royal love life. Henry had demanded that Clement VII grant him a divorce from the Emperor’s Aunt Catherine, and then recognize the Protestant-oriented Anne Boleyn as his new Queen. When Clement stood mute, Henry took all of England away from Rome and made himself

    “complete owner of the lands and tenements [of England], as well at law as in equity.”

    Clement VII was succeeded by the oldest cardinal, an erudite humanist with formidable diplomatic skills, 66-year-old Alessandro Farnese. Cardinal Farnese had been privately educated in the household of Lorenzo d’Medici and had been appointed Treasurer of the Vatican in 1492. He was crowned Pope Paul III.

    Vatican wags called Farnese “Cardinal Petticoat” because his strikingly beautiful sister Giulia had been mistress to the licentious Pope Alexander VI, for which the same wags nicknamed her “Bride of Christ.”

    Giulia posed undraped for the statue of the Goddess Justice that still reclines voluptuously on Paul III’s tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica. Two centuries later, at the command, in the interests of decency, of Pius IX, the first pope to be officially declared infallible, Giulia’s exposed breasts were fitted with a metal blouse.

    Paul III is a major figure in the history of the Society of Jesus, and consequently of the United States of America, since it was he who approved, in the summer of 1539, Ignatius de Loyola’s business plan. Ignatius proposed a “minimal society” that would “do battle in the Lord God’s service under the banner of the Cross.” The militia would be very small, no more than sixty members, and each would have to take four vows – of poverty, chastity, obedience to the Church, and a vow of special obedience to the pope.

    They would not be confined to any specific parish but would be dispersed throughout the world according to the papacy’s needs. They would wear no particular habit, but would dress according to the environment in which they found themselves. They would infiltrate the world in an unpredictable variety of pursuits – as doctors, lawyers, authors, reforming theologians, financiers, statesmen, courtiers, diplomats, explorers, tradesmen, merchants, poets, scholars, scientists, architects, engineers, artists, printers, philosophers, and whatever else the world might demand and the Church require.

    Their head would be a Superior General. In the Constitutions which Ignatius was writing, the Superior General would be “obeyed and reverenced at all times as the one who holds the place of Christ our Lord.” The phrase “holds the place of Christ” means that the Superior General would share with the Pope, at a level unperceived by the general public, the divine title of “Vicar of Christ” first claimed by Gelasius I on May 13, 495.

    Loyola’s completed Constitutions would repeat five hundred times that one is to see Christ in the person of the Superior General. The General’s equal status with the Pope, advantaged by an obscurity that renders him virtually invisible, is why the commander-in-chief of the Society of Jesus has always been called Papa Nero, the Black Pope.

    The Superior General’s small army would be trained by the Spiritual Exercises to practice a brand of obedience Loyola termed contemplativus in actione, active contemplation, instantaneous obedience with all critical thought suppressed. As stated in Section 353.1 of the Exercises,

    “We must put aside all judgment of our own, and keep the mind ever ready and prompt to obey in all things the hierarchical Church.”

    But Jesuit obedience would be more than mere obedience of the will. An obedient will suppresses what it would do in order to obey what a superior wants done. Ignatius demanded obedience of the understanding. An obedient understanding alters its perception of reality according to the superior’s dictates. Section 365.13 declares,
    “We must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.”

    Francis Xavier would later describe this quality of submission in a vow that unintentionally summarized the Jesuit mission:

    “I would not even believe in the Gospels were the Holy Church to forbid it.”

    The Society does not open its extreme oath of obedience to public inspection. However, a script alleged to be a true facsimile was translated by Edwin A. Sherman and deposited in the Library of Congress with the number bx3705.s56. According to this document, when a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colors, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbones, with the initials ‘I.N.R.I.,’ and below them the words ‘ICSTUM NACAR REGES IMPIOS,’ the meaning of which is ‘It is just to annihilate impious rulers.’

    [Biblically, these initials represent the Roman inscription above Christ’s head on the cross: ‘Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews.’]

    On the floor is a red cross upon which the postulant or candidate kneels. The Superior hands him a small black crucifix, which he takes in his left hand and presses to his heart and the Superior at the same time presents to him a dagger, which he grasps by the blade and holds the point against his heart, the Superior still holding it by the hilt….

    The Superior gives a preamble, and then administers the oath:

    I,—————————, now, in the presence of Almighty God,
    the Blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed Michael the Archangel, the blessed St. Paul and all the Saints and sacred Hosts of Heaven, and to you, my Ghostly Father, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius Loyola, in the Pontificate of Paul the Third, and continued to the present, do by the Womb of the Virgin, the Matrix of God, and the Rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear, that His Holiness the Pope is Christ’s Vice-Regent and is the true and only Head of the Catholic and Universal Church throughout the earth; and that by virtue of the keys of binding and loosing, given to His Holiness by my Savior, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths and governments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation, and that they may safely be destroyed.

    Therefore, to the utmost of my power, I shall and will defend this doctrine and His Holiness’ right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark,

    Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and churches of England and Scotland, and branches of the same now established in Ireland and on the Continent of America and elsewhere; and all adherents in regard that they be usurped and heretical, opposing the sacred Mother Church of Rome.

    I do now renounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince, or state named Protestants or Liberals, or obedience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers.

    I do further declare that the doctrines of the churches of England and Scotland, of the Calvinists, Huguenots and others of the name Protestants or Liberals to be damnable, and they themselves damned and to be damned who will not forsake the same.

    I do further declare that I will help, assist and advise all or any of His Holiness’ agents in any place wherever I shall be, in Switzerland, German, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, Ireland, or America, or in any other kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my uttermost to extirpate the heretical Protestants or Liberals’ doctrines and to destroy all their pretended powers, regal or otherwise.

    I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding I am dispensed with, to assume any religion heretical, for the propagating of the Mother Church’s interest, to keep secret and private all her agents’ counsels from time to time, as they may entrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing, or circumstance whatever; but to execute all that shall be proposed, given in charge or discovered unto me, by you, my Ghostly Father, or any of this sacred convent.

    I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own, or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver, but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the Militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ.

    That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be sent, to the frozen regions of the North, the burning sands of the desert of Africa, or the jungles of India, to the centers of civilization of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous savages of America, without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things whatsoever communicated to me.

    I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex, or condition; and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poinard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either
    public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.

    In confirmation of which, I hereby dedicate my life, my soul, and all my corporeal powers, and with this dagger which I now receive, I will subscribe my name written in my own blood, in testimony thereof; and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the Militia of the Pope cut off my hands and my feet, and my throat from ear to ear, my belly opened and sulphur burned therein, with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth and my soul be tortured by demons in an eternal hell forever!

    All of which I,———————–, do swear by the blessed Trinity and blessed Sacrament, which I am now to receive, to perform and on my part to keep inviolably; and do call all the heavenly and glorious host of heaven to witness these
    my real intentions to keep this my oath.

    In testimony hereof I take this most holy and blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, and witness the same further, with my name written with the point of this dagger dipped in my own blood and sealed in the face of this holy Convent.

    He receives the wafer from the Superior and writes his name with the point of his dagger dipped in his own blood taken from over the heart….

    When Ignatius concluded his presentation, the Pope reportedly cried out “Hoc est digitus Dei!” – “This is the fingerstroke of God!” On September 27, 1540, Paul III sealed his approval with the highest and most solemn form of papal pronouncement, a document known as a “bull” (from the Latin bulla, meaning “bubble,” denoting the attached ovoid or circular seal bearing the pope’s name). Paul’s bull ordaining the Jesuits is entitled Regimini militantis ecclesiae, “On the Supremacy of the Church Militant.” The title forms a cabalistic device common to pagan Roman divining. Known as notariqon, this device is an acronym that enhances the meaning of its initialized words.

    “Regimini militantis ecclesiae” produces the notariqon “R[O]ME,” the empire whose salvation the Society of Jesus was ordained by this bull to secure through the arts of war.

    The following April, the original six and a few other members elected Ignatius de Loyola their first Superior General. What had been approved as a minimal society soon multiplied to a thousand strong. Ignatius did this by administering to only sixty the extreme oath of obedience to the pope, while admitting hundreds more under lesser oaths. Ever since, the exact size of the Society has been known only to the Superior General. As the world gained increasing numbers of doctors, lawyers, authors, reforming theologians, financiers, statesmen, courtiers, diplomats, explorers, tradesmen, merchants, poets, scholars, scientists, architects, engineers,
    artists, printers, and philosophers, it was extremely difficult for an ordinary citizen to tell which were Jesuits and which were not. Not even Jesuits could say for sure, because of a provision in the Constitutions (Sections 81–86 of Part I) which authorizes the Superior General to “receive agents, both priestly agents to help in
    spiritual matters and lay agents to give aid in temporal and domestic functions.” Called “coadjutors,” these lay agents could be of any religious denomination, race, nationality, or sex. They took an oath which bound them “for whatever time the Superior General of the Society should see fit to employ them in spiritual or temporal services.” This provision was availed by so many black popes that the French had a name for people suspected of being Jesuit agents: les robes-petites (“short-robes”). The English called them “short-coats” or “Ignatians.”

    Within two years of Regimini militantis ecclesiae, Paul III appointed the Society to administer the Roman Inquisition (not to be confused with the Spanish Inquisition, which reported only to the Spanish crown). When the Jesuits were comfortable with the Inquisition, Paul made his move to “reconcile” with the Protestants.

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